


"Coffee's better in New York, anyway."

by Lesbianna



Series: Glee Fix-It-Fics [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Episode: s06e03 Jagged Little Tapestry, Fix-It-Fic, Gen, Mentions of Blainofsky, NYADA boys love Kurt, Not Blaine Friendly, Not Klaine Friendly, chandler convinces kurt to go back to NYC, free kurt, mentions of Klaine, mentions of chandler's crush on Kurt, not klaine or blaine friendly, placed somewhere indefineably after Santana's rant, yes that episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 17:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12303996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesbianna/pseuds/Lesbianna
Summary: Kurt Hummel is getting a cup of coffee in a place where the zombies of his dreams are still almost walking. Maybe it's time to leave them behind.-"Kurt felt a laugh being ripped from his throat. “Really?”“Oh yeah. Might be the reason someone torched the place recently, actually. They didn’t want Anderson to be a teacher there,” Chandler giggled.Kurt’s chuckling tapered off. He looked into his coffee cup, and as he considered the swirls of coffee and milk, said, “I remember my dad telling me I looked like I was being driven to my execution. He was the one driving the car.”





	"Coffee's better in New York, anyway."

The shop smelled of cinnamon and coffee beans, and it was warm and welcoming and full of _memories_.

He didn't know why he was here.

Okay, he knew why he was _here_ – in the coffee shop.

That doesn’t mean he knew why he was back here, in Lima, Ohio, when he had dreams in New York - dreams he wouldn’t ever accomplish without Blaine, his therapist told him. Dreams he wouldn’t accomplish without love and intimacy. In that moment, he missed Finn so much, and he wanted to cry over the thought of going back, of being being back. The piece of his heart reserved solely for his stepbrother has felt wilted and broken and cracked for so long.

He was back here to help Rachel with a Glee club, and he was back here to get Blaine back, but he doesn’t know _why_. Maybe it’s the saying about the universe working in mysterious ways. Maybe it’s karma - karma for not being a good boyfriend, a good fiancé, a good son, a good brother. He was always _left behind_.

He sometimes has to wonder if his memory is faulty. It’s like the memory of breaking up with Blaine is wrong - it had to be, after all, Santana dedicated an entire rant about why he was so worthless Blaine had to end it with him. He remembered it though – remembered telling Blaine that maybe he didn’t want to marry him, and Blaine telling him that he’d _never forgive him for this._

Would Blaine ever forgive him?

It felt strange, to tell the barista a completely different coffee order than the one he had back in High School.

“Um – a macchiato, please.”

He handed the girl – who he’d never seen her before, which was expected, he reminds himself – the money, and waited expectantly for the heavenly bean water. He received a coffee cup to-go, and decided to find a table somewhere. The room was full of memories. A teenage dream gone wrong.

The door opened and closed behind him,

“Kurt Hummel?” a light voice asked from behind him. Kurt couldn’t picture a face to it, which meant it wasn’t anyone from his old Glee Club, nor anyone from a rival glee club, which kind of made the probability of it being a friend… lower than zero. He turned, and was met with the sight of a blue-eyed, blonde boy, who gave him a kind of familiar feeling.

“I don’t know if you remember me, or- but I’m Chandler Kiehl, we talked a bit when we were in High School? We were texting buddies for a while?”

Kurt smiled. “Yeah, I remember you. Your glasses suits you even better than they did then.”

“Really?” Chandler looked flustered, and leaned in, as though telling a secret. He whispered, “I was kind of - you know they’re kind of hipster, I feel a little like an imposter.”

Kurt pretended to wave away Chandler’s worries, and said, “Nah, they suit you.”

“Do you… maybe want to sit down, and talk?” Chandler looked kind, and sweet. And Kurt felt like he was a five-year-old, making a friend for the first time. Or maybe a fifty-year-old, reconnecting with a friend he made when he was five.

The memory of Blaine almost dumping him because of the mess with Chandler texting him flew into his head. That kind of decided it for Kurt.

“Yeah, sure.”

Chandler smiled brightly at him. “I’ll sit down over there while you get your coffee, if that’s okay with you?” He pointed at a table close to the windows. The cars were rushing by, a steady rushing and rumbling noise you could _almost_ hear.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Kurt was chatting lively with Chandler KIehl, first about how Rachel was commanding the Glee club and how Kurt seemed to be her ‘helper’ more than a co-coach, and then about New York. Chandler had indeed gotten into NYU, just as he had hoped. “I love being around all those people who sing and act and play and- and do so many _things_ with their lives. It’s so much broader than anything here!” He exclaimed excitedly, swinging his coffee cup around, almost splashing some on the floor, before taking a sip.

“I know what you mean!” Kurt said eagerly. “Just- being around all these people who have the same passions, who have dreams of making themselves something, it makes you want to fight that much harder to be even _half_ as good as them! And even just – standing in a school like that, feeling that energy from them, and knowing that all these people have their own stories, and dreams, and that they’re going to become these people that inspire you, it’s amazing!”

“Definitely! I heard, in the musical theater circles, that this girl, Maria Castor was told she was amazing by NYADA’s Dance teacher!”

“No way that happened! Mrs. July is brutal! _I’ve_ heard, that the biggest words of praise she has ever given was _‘not as bad as it could have been, but reign in the squid arms.’_ ”

“Well, don’t shoot the messenger!” Chandler laughed and raised his hands in surrender.

They smiled and took a sip of coffee sludge. Then, Chandler seemed to collect himself, and said,

“I… have to get this out there, so that it’s not like… hanging over my head this entire conversation.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow, and nodded for him to continue.  
“I kind of had a crush on you in my senior year of high school. You know, for a long time it felt like this completely impossible thing. I thought it was the ultimate cliché, crushing on that hot guy from the other school, who would probably crush your heart without even realizing it. You were _so hot_ , and you were so confident, and so sure of yourself. I felt a little inadequate. Especially once David transferred to North High, and he… got outed.”

Kurt furrowed his eyebrows. “Were you afraid of coming out? You seemed very confident in yourself when we met though… How can that be?”

“No, no, I was kind of an obvious flamer to everyone when I moved here in junior year, so… No, but, um, David was essentially… Hopelessly in love with you. He knew that he wouldn’t get anywhere with you, but he had to lay it out there. And I visited him in the hospital and he told me about what you’d said to him, and you’d been so kind and amazing towards him. And I just thought you were the most compassionate person I had ever heard of.”

Kurt shook his head. “It was the right thing to do. I couldn’t blame him for his feelings, and I couldn’t keep dwelling on what he’d done to me junior year.”

Chandler smiled at him in acknowledgment of what he’d said, a blush staining his cheeks, as he continued. “Anyway, then I gather the confidence to actually _talk_ to you, and I bumble my way through the conversation and am awkward and loud…”

He hid his head in his hands, dragging his fingers through the blonde locks groaning. “It makes me embarrassed to even think about it.”

Kurt grinned, and wiped his mouth of macchiato with a paper towel. “It was fine, you had fashion sense, I can forgive many awkward fumbling conversations if you have fashion sense.”

“Noted.” A relieved Chandler mumbled, face beet red.

“Okay, wait, let’s back up, you never said you knew Dave as well! Back then, I mean.” Kurt clarifies.

“Oh, um, we never got to talk long enough for me to mention that I knew him - I didn’t want to just… drop that on you. The… attempt had happened only a month before I managed to ‘bump into you’ and ‘casually’ compliment you.” Chandler fidgeted quietly at the thought of David’s suicide attempt. A moment of quiet fell over them.

“I’m sorry about telling you we couldn’t text anymore. My boyfriend told me to stop texting you. He said it was cheating.” Kurt said softly.

Chandler furrowed his brows. “How is a silly text saying that ‘you’ve got a great asp’ cheating?”

Kurt shrugged. He didn’t really know anymore. Perhaps he hadn’t _ever_ known. He knew that he had somewhat considered Blaine texting with Sebastian as cheating, mostly because Sebastian had always been clear he wanted to have sex with Blaine. A few compliments from a guy didn’t seem to be even in that league, and Blaine had, up until that moment, been pretty adamant that texting wasn’t cheating, since Sebastian “ _meant nothing”_ to him.

“That was just what he said.”

“Anyway, I was never trying to get you to cheat.” Chandler says. “I don’t think cheating is ever good, and you shouldn’t ever do it. Did I want to go out with you? Yeah. Of course. When I complimented you though, it wasn’t with an end goal. All I wanted, was for you to get that text and smile. I googled the most ridiculous pick-up-lines.”

Kurt grinned. “Oh yes, I remember. They made me laugh so much.”

“Well – now that _I_ have admitted my dirty little high school crush on one Kurt Hummel, I would _love it_ if you’d tell me one of _your_ dirty little secrets.” Chandler made finger guns at Kurt, and Kurt smiled weakly.

Kurt was quiet for a moment, playing with the lid of his cup, and finally just taking it off.

“I ended things with my fiancé, Blaine, half a year ago. He was the high school boyfriend _. He_ didn’t have reservations about cheating. When I moved to New York after senior year, he cheated, because I wasn’t _around when I needed him_. We were broken up for most of the year. He tried very hard to get back together with me, multiple times. Then, when I returned to Lima, because my dad was in treatment for cancer – he’s okay now, by the way – he was around all the time, and I was _worried_ and _scared_ , and then he somehow talked me into getting back together _,_ and somehow, I left Lima with a ring on my finger. He’d invited four show choirs to the damn proposal...”

“I remember that. I saw pictures in the papers, of that proposal that happened at Dalton. All those rose petals caused a student to have an allergic reaction, and the parents sued the school.”

Kurt felt a laugh being ripped from his throat. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. Might be the reason someone torched the place recently, actually. They didn’t want Anderson to be a teacher there,” Chandler giggled.

Kurt’s chuckling tapered off. He looked into his coffee cup, and as he considered the swirls of coffee and milk, said, “I remember my dad telling me I looked like I was being driven to my execution. He was the one driving the car.”

He looked up at Chandler, who looked aghast.

“ _He_ _said that_?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what happened?” Chandler looked half excited, half nervous for what had been next.

“Then… Blaine and I were engaged, and we lived together for a while, and it _sucked_. Then he moved out for a bit, so we could have space, and he moved back in. We were still fighting. Nothing was working, no matter what we did. He wanted to _be stronger_ than me, and I had to be _weak_ , and he got mad if I wiped my face on the towels, and I hated how he made the food, and he always wanted to talk about the _wedding_ and I didn’t even care. I was the one to plan my dad’s wedding to my stepmother when I was 17, and it was an amazing wedding…  but I didn’t care about my own... Y’know? And then one night I broke it off with him.  Living together - it’s a trial run, right? We failed it twice. We couldn’t _do it_. And I love him, I still love him, but I don’t know- sometimes I don’t know if it was worth coming back here, to fight for him. My therapist told me I should do it. I had no friends left in New York, Blaine either chased them off, or they left for… better things.”

Chandler’s face had fallen, and he looked upset. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. The breakup was like, seven months ago, I broke it off. Came here.”

“He’s been dating Dave for five months. You know that, right?”

Kurt smiled. “Yeah. And I’m… happy for Dave. But… I guess it just… Still hurts.”

“Just because you still love Blaine, doesn’t mean you still should.” Chandler said softly.

Silence. Then, Chandler burst out with a,

“Don’t you realize how many men in New York would be willing to let you _step on their dick_ , as long as you’d kiss it better afterwards?” He flushed scarlet. “Oh god, did I just _say_ that?”

Kurt laughed, and raised his glass in a toast at the blonde while his body shook from laughing, his face crinkling. “Oh my god! Chandler! You’re a perv!”

They both chuckled. “I mean, I’m over the crush from high school, mostly. I mean, _hello, arms?_ But… I’m not still pining over you or anything. But, you know…

“What I was trying to tell you is… you’re not undesirable. So, don’t let that be the reason you stay here in Podunk Lima, Ohio. You can find someone else, easy. You’re kind of famous in musical theater circles you know. The whole… Being a hero business. My friend Niko starts blushing anytime someone mentions the combat classes at NYADA, and then starts mumbling about your arms. Don’t settle for someone who has cheated on you, when I could tell you the names of at least two of my friends who would be willing to go out.”

Kurt hid his head in his hands with a quiet laugh. “Really? They should be trying for you – you’re a ray of human sunshine!”

Chandler grinned and waved his statement aside with a sunny smile. “Oh, I _know_ I am.”

Then, he said gently, “besides, you’re talented. So, so talented. You were an amazing singer in high school… I would know, I stalked you, remember? I doubt NYADA has made you worse.”  
Kurt felt the tears clinging to his eyelashes and the smile he gave Chandler was wobbly yet filled with butterflies and happiness.

“Chandler Kiehl, you and your hipster glasses just made my day.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just sad the world doesn’t see more of your biceps or your _awesome_ hippo brooches.” Chandler quipped, and sipped at his coffee as though he was Kermit the Frog.

“So you’re saying I should go back to New York?” He said with a chuckle, and a pang of longing.

“Yeah, why not? You just spent ten minutes talking about the magic of the city, and yet you want to stay here? Kurt, this town is where flowers like us go to die. People like us, we belong in the concrete jungle.”

Maybe memories should stay memories, sometimes. Maybe teenage dreams should stay dead, sometimes.

Maybe Kurt should stop looking for zombies of a resurrected past, and make his own future.

“I’m just sayin’, Kurt, there are probably still seats on the plane I’m boarding this Wednesday. Buy a ticket, put on your hippo brooch, do a favor to all of the cute gay boys who want a piece of you and get over the d-bag.”

Kurt looks out of the window, at the slush of bad memories and zombie memories that was Lima. “The coffee’s better in New York anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was all inspired by an old post I saw on tumblr a long time ago, about how amazing it would have been if Chandler convinced Kurt to go back to NYC.  
> I decided to deliver on that.


End file.
